Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, a memory control method for the information processing apparatus, and a program.
Description of the Related Art
In an information processing apparatus, for example, a multifunction peripheral (MFP) having multiple functions, such as copying, printing, scanning, and faxing, a service error may occur due to, for example, a failure in a printing unit. In such an error state, it is difficult to continuously use the MFP. A user has to make an inquiry about the error of a distributer or a service department.
An MFP may temporarily enter a service error state because of a mechanical problem. For example, some of manuals describe that a user can turn the MFP off and then on again and see whether the MFP works. In some cases, the MFP may fail to recover from the service error state. Some of MFPs targeted at a relatively large office have a configuration, called degeneracy, in which only functions that do not require a portion suffering a failure are continuously available.
Most of compact MFPs (CMFPs) targeted at, for example, a small office home office (SOHO) are configured such that if a service error occurs, a service error message is displayed and the continuous use of the whole CMFP is not allowed, because processes of the CMFP are simplified.
In such a CMFP, if received facsimile image data cannot be output due to, for example, a failure in a printing unit, the received facsimile image data may be virtually lost. Unfortunately, a user may suffer a significant loss. To avoid such a loss, a known CMFP is configured such that if a service error occurs, received facsimile image data can be transferred to any destination.
For reasons different from the above, some of CMFPs use an embedded multi-media card (eMMC) as a storage for storing and saving a main program, various setting values, facsimile image data, and destinations of the facsimile image data.
The eMMC has characteristics: at the end of its service life, the eMMC enters a read-only state where data can be read from the eMMC but data cannot be written into the eMMC.
If a failure (including the end of the service life) of a storage is detected during execution of a main program in such a CMFP, the CMFP typically enters a service error state. Furthermore, if a failure of a storage storing the main program is detected during execution of a boot program just after turn-on, the main program cannot be loaded. The CMFP is accordingly forced to undergo a transition to the service error state during execution of the boot program.
It is assumed that a failure of a storage is caused by the read-only state of the eMMC. At this time, facsimile image data can be read but a transfer destination cannot be written. Disadvantageously, a transfer function cannot be used for the received facsimile image data upon occurrence of a service error, as described above. As a measure against to such a case, a technique described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2010-199665 can be used to configure a CMFP so that received facsimile image data can be saved to a universal serial bus (USB) memory.